Health Disparities Essay

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1. What does the term health disparities mean?

Health disparities are the variances in access to healthcare. This also include variance in availability of health care services, facilities, education, and insurance. Another aspect is the variance in the type of violence, injury, and disease that exist in specific communities and ethnic groups. Health disparities leads to inequalities in healthcare access and availability. Health disparities could have negative effects on the health of groups of people, resulting from greater social and economic obstacles. These obstacles could come from discrimination/exclusion due to ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, and geographic location.



2. Which racial/ethnic …show more content…

These include social economic status, culture, access to health care, utilization of health care, low health care skills and literacy, and utilization of preventive care, limited financial resources, language barriers, and health-related behaviors.



4. What are reasons for disparities in access to health care?

The reasons for disparities in access to health care include (Mandal, 2014): lack of health insurance by racial and ethnic minorities populations, lack of financial resources, irregular source of health care, legal obstacles, lack of health care providers, structural barriers, language barriers, and age. The major reasons focus on individual level factors such as demographics, health beliefs, and status of health insurance.



5. How can health disparities be ended?

There are several ways to end health disparities. Frist, programs should be put in place the promote and implement accommodation of difference in culture, engage communities in public health practices, support health equity, and provide financial supports to those with poor income. Language services should also be provided to those with language barriers. There should be public policies to reduce health intimidation. Social media could be used to promote health literacy, health informatics, and collaborations to accommodate different cultures and promote better health-related behaviors. Also, there should be increase in community awareness of health disparities and its negative

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